On 4/18/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie writes:
>I agree that populism rests on a class division and that it can
overlap with democracy. That's the reason why some think Latin
America today is going populist while others think it is going social
democratic.<
populism rests on class division at the same time it obscures it. It
focuses on the mass of the "little guys" vs. the elite, where as
socialism and social democracy focus more on the class structure.
It's possible to have a clear idea of the class structure and yet draw
a line populistically, between the pueblo and the oligarquÃas, in
order to consciously create a broad coalition that includes petty
producers. In fact, that's how most socialists draw a line under
capitalism and even at an early stage of transition to socialism.
A
rich guy can be a populist because he's an "outsider" (like H. Ross
Perot), while a rich socialist has to be clear that he or she is going
against class interest (like Lloyd).
If you make the term populism so expansive as to include H. Ross
Perot's politics, the term loses its class content. The balanced
budget + protectionism, the core of his politics, looks to me to be
plain old conservatism -- protectionism is against the grain of the
bipartisan consensus, to be sure, but the balanced budget contradicts
the traditional populist emphasis on expansive fiscal and monetary
policies.
--
Yoshie
